Carry On High
by Shimegami-chan
Summary: One-shot. A terrible accident claims Edogawa Conan's life, but he can't move on until the most important person to him learns the secret he's kept hidden for so long...


Disclaimer: There is only one truth...and it's that Detective Conan does not belong to me! Nooooo!

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A/N: This story was written the same year _Countdown to Heaven_ came out, but I hadn't seen it at that point. Yes, I'm aware that Shinichi does in fact know how to drive (cars, boats, planes, helicopters and damn near everything else), but it's a large factor in the story that he can't, so we'll have to mark this one a little more alternate-universe.  
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Carry On High  
By Shimegami-chan  
Warnings: _Excessively depressing._ This is an AU story that could probably occur anywhere in the first few seasons.

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Edogawa Conan was a boy of many skills.

Having once been the detective Kudo Shinichi, he knew how to dust for fingerprints, and locate blood spots using Luminol. He could shoot a pistol and navigate using the position of the sun. He knew how to analyze and imitate voices and accents. How to dance. How to play all kinds of sports. How to cook Italian-style, and how to use almost any appliance, even if he'd never seen it before. He knew how to fence and kick judo-style and rock-climb and speak perfect English, French and German. He could fly a plane or steer a motorcycle in a pinch.

But the one thing Conan had never learned to do was drive a car.

**Act One: Fly**

Conan slumped against the passenger window with a yawn. "Are we there yet?"

Mori Kogoro scowled at the road ahead of him. "Shut up, kid."

Ran, dozing in the back seat, was too out of it to chastise her father. Conan decided not to risk angering his landlord without Ran's protection and kept quiet, staring at the radio and the glowing digital clock beneath it. The time was 4:16 a.m. and the horizon was dimly lit by the sun, hidden by angry stormclouds. Rain pounded on the roof of the car, its harsh pattern almost lulling Conan to sleep.

Kogoro yawned and steadied the wheel in his hands. They were still on some back road, shrouded by trees and the sheets of rain. Besides having driven relentlessly for eight hours straight to get as far as he did, Kogoro had also 'solved' an extremely tough case that had been the cause of their trip. He was doubly exhausted but wouldn't allow Ran to take the wheel. The teenage girl was probably just as tired as he. Conan wished he could just knock Kogoro out and drive the rest of the way, but it was one skill he didn't possess. That, and escaping Ran's wrath if she woke up and found the seven-year-old driving the car. So Conan sat back and watched Kogoro carefully, trying not to fall asleep until he got back home and in his own bed.

The detective leered at the windshield again. It seemed that scowling was the only thing keeping him awake, Conan noted. The teenager-turned-child was not as alert as he usually would have been, but he was watching Kogoro carefully. When the man had began to gnash his teeth at the scenery before, Conan turned away so as not to incur the short-tempered man's wrath. He closed his aching eyes to rest them, head leaning against the leather of the seat.

The car edged toward the shoulder of the road and one wheel slipped onto gravel, starting Conan back to wakefulness. Kogoro was asleep! Conan let out a yell and unbuckled his seatbelt to grab the wheel, easing them back onto the road. "Damn!"

Both the shout and the sudden movement caused Kogoro to jerk awake, wrenching the wheel from his savior's tiny fingers. "What are you _doing_, you little idiot!?"

Conan pulled back to his seat. "I was just--"

A shrill noise from the back caused them both to jump, and they turned to see Ran pointing frantically. "Watch out! _Watch out!_"

Out of the inky blackness came a set of headlights, and a horn blared. Kogoro swore and wrenched the wheel sideways. Conan braced for a collision, realizing a second too late that he had taken off his seatbelt.

Ran screamed.

**Act Two: Falter**

Conan awoke to the sounds of people talking excitedly and machines machines humming. Someone was crying. Ran? He couldn't open his eyes.

His lips tried to form her name. _Ran..._

His arms and legs felt like lead, and his body ached. Even though his eyes were closed his vision was flooded with white light. He just wanted to go back to sleep...or maybe tell Ran it was okay, not to cry. But his body demanded recupertaion, and with an internal sigh of releif Edogawa Conan complied.

Within a moment he slipped from consciousness.

Moments later he awoke again to the sound of shrill scream and crying. Ran? Conan forced his eyes open with surprising success. Ran was at the edge of his field of vision, two doctors holding her back, struggling. Conan winced. Those poor guys. With a resounding scream she kicked them both and rushed forward to Conan's side.

He sat up. "Ran."

She didn't respond, clinging to an object on the bed. A pale hand, a child's by the look of it. "Ran?"

Dread settled deep in Conan's stomach as he reached to touch his friend's shoulder, his long slim fingers passing right through her body. Conan stared at his hands, at his torso and legs. All glowed a shimmering blue and were larger than he was used to feeling. He vaulted off the bed and a second look at its occupant confirmed his worst fears.

A brown-haired child with closed eyes, pale and silent. He didn't move; didn't breathe.

The boy called Edogawa Conan.

_Am I dead?_

**Act Three: Touch**

As the boy watched, Ran was escorted out of the room and away from the hospital, Conan's broken glasses cluched tightly in her hand. He followed her cautiously at first, afraid to stray too far from the body that had once held him, but too concerned to stay.

Gingerly he touched his face, his arms, his hair. An adult's body. An adult's mind. He was normal again, seventeen and the Kudo Shinichi he hadn't really been since that day at the amusement park. But Conan was distant, Conan was dead.

Did that mean that he, Shinichi, was dead too?

Dead. The word seemed so impersonal. He didn't know much about ghosts--had really never beleived much in the supernatural, but sometimes his job called for it--but he guessed that there was some reason why his body was dead and he wasn't. Something unfinished.

Unfinished. Ran. Shinichi trailed after his self-proclaimed girlfriend, his feet barely touching the asphalt. Where was Ran going? Where was Kogoro anyway? It was his fault that the accident happened. Shouldn't he have been here with Ran? Shinichi hoped vaguely that the half-wit deective had made it out alive. After all, he was all Ran had left.

Ran reached the apartment and ran up the stairs and through the door, Shinichi right behind her, she locked the bolt and ran to her room before collapsing on the bed in tears.

Shinichi lay down beside Ran as best he could, floating about an inch above the bed, facing her.

Her sobs quieted slightly, and Shinichi imagined that it was his presence that brought that effect. She stared brokenly at the glasses, one lens shattered beyond repair, the other cracked. Shinichi cringed, glad for a fleeting moment to have been unconscious for the impact.

"He was too young," she whispered, talking to no one, and yet her words ringing in Shinichi's ears like a death toll.

His lips trembling, Shinichi raised a hand to Ran's cheek and held it there, wishing he could feel her skin beneath his shimmering palm. At the brushing contact she froze, closing her eyes, and then relaxed.

"Conan," she mumbled softly, "could you be my guardian angel now? You always looked out for me. Like Shinichi used to do. Shinichi..."

Shinichi fought to keep tears from gathering in his eyes. "If I could be your angel, I would."

Even though she couldn't possibly have heard his words, she relaxed. "Please...don't leave me..."

"Never."

**Act Four: Dream**

Ran stood on a violet ocean, her bare feet untouched by the waves crashing around her. The sky was a hazy grey, the landscape monotone except for the purple water she stood upon. Ran tried to keep calm, spotting a shore about twenty feet away, and ran to it. On the shore stood Conan.

"Conan-kun! You're all right!" Her eyes spilled over with happy tears as she ran towards the shore. "I was so worried about you!"

Conan smiled and removed his glasses. "Ran."

She stopped and blinked at him. Never had the boy sounded so...so _serious._ And as far as she knew he was positively blind without his thick glasses. "Is something wrong?"

"Ran, I need to tell you something." He walked out onto the shining sea to meet her. His voice had changed somewhat; gotten deeper and older sounding, and very familiar. "You're not going to like it, and I'm sorry I hid it for this long."

"W-What?"

He looked her in the eye, soft blue meeting determined ice. "I've been keeping something from you, something that you need to know now. I...I'm not Edogawa Conan at all. I made that up."

"But, Conan-kun..." realization and dread dawned on Ran. "Of course you are...who else could you possibly be?"

"You suspected it," he said quietly, "and I lied to you. I'm sorry, Ran. I was just trying to protect you from the people who did this to me."

"No. You can't be..." She stepped back, betrayal etched all over her face.

"I'm sorry." Suddenly the small boy was a lanky teenager with spiked brown hair. "I'm so sorry."

"Shinichi."

As the words left her lips the violet ocean opened up, swallowing Mori Ran whole.

**Act Five: Angel**

"Ran!" Shinichi screamed as the waves parted and sucked the girl into their depths. "_Ran!_"

Suddenly the water was no longer solid beneath his own ethereal feet and he plunged into the sea, diving down. Ran was sinking fast, her eyes closed, her skirt billowing around her like a shroud.

Shinichi wrapped his arms around her waist, glad to feel solid contact beneath his hands. He kicked hard and pulled them both to the surface of the raging water before heading inshore.

Ran's eyes opened as he dragged her onto the sand, breathing hard. "Shinichi."

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me that you were Conan before?"

Shinichi's voice broke. "I didn't want you to get hurt. I...care for you, Ran."

Tears brimmed in her blue eyes. "I care for you too. I forgive you."

"Thank you." He gathered her into a hug. "You can't imagine how much this means to me."

She stiffened and looked down, suddenly afraid to meet his eyes. "But, Shinichi...Conan's..."

"I know, Ran," he whispered, tears spilling from his own eyes. "I know."

**Act Six: Carry On High**

Ran awoke with a start, no longer able to feel Shinichi's arms around her. "Shi-Shinichi?"

No response, not even a whisper from the dream she had just woken up from. Had it been just a dream?

A glance at her watch informed her that it was 4:16 a.m. Still time to sleep before she picked up her father from the hospital at ten, but she didn't ever want to see that hospital ever again.

Conan...

Sitting up, Ran shivered. She was freezing and her clothes were soaked as though she had taken a bath in them. The hem of her skirt was stained violet.

A light hand on her cheek startled Ran and she turned, but found no one there. The warmth of the touch spread throughout her body, driving the chill from it as she reached out blindly for the source of the warmth. "C-Conan-kun? Shinichi? Shinichi! Don't leave me!"

The red digital numbers changed to 4:17.

_I'm sorry, Ran._ The words were a soft echo in the back of her mind. _I love you._

"Shinichi...I love you..."

The words released a new flood of tears, and then Ran was alone.

_If I could be your angel..._

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_-end-_


End file.
